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Trustee Shaun Chen is elected Toronto District School Board chair at first meeting of new batch of trustees at TDSB headquarters in Toronto on Monday. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Trustee Shaun Chen is elected Toronto District School Board new chair and then congratulated by his parents Monday at the first meeting of the new group of trustees at TDSB headquarters in Toronto. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Toronto’s embattled public school board has chosen a new chair — Scarborough Trustee Shaun Chen — to try to steer it out of controversy over the next 12 months and back into the public’s confidence.

Chen beat Etobicoke Trustee Chris Glover Monday night for the key role after a vote by secret ballot by the 22 new trustees of the Toronto District School Board.

“I’ve seen incredible controversy and lack of trust at this board . . . but this is a huge opportunity to turn the page and really get down to what’s important to us — the students,” said Chen, 34. “We need to create positive relationships and rebuild trust between trustees, between trustees and staff and between the public and the board.”

The new board, which was sworn in Monday, begins its four-year term as provincially appointed troubleshooter Margaret Wilson starts her task of reviewing the tensions among trustees and between trustees and Education Director Donna Quan.

Some of the returning trustees have been at odds with each other over Quan, whom some have accused of being secretive about documents such as her contract, of having a salary that exceeds a provincial salary freeze and of polarizing trustees, rather than uniting them.

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However Quan said she reached out to every trustee Monday to meet with her one-on-one in the next month and discuss what they want to accomplish.

“All the relationships can be mended,” said Quan on Monday night.

“I believe we can move forward to a new beginning, 100 per cent,” she said, adding that some degree of “healthy tension brings about change.”

Relations between the chair and director are said to be key in any school board, and Chen has not been a vocal critic of Quan. First elected in 2006, the former software consultant said in a letter to trustees before the meeting, “I am ready to provide leadership that enables us to work together, not apart,” and build what he called an “inclusive space where all trustees feel they belong, are welcomed, and can contribute in a meaningful way.”

Chen is working on his PhD in social justice education at the University of Toronto.

But he also plans to seek the Liberal nomination for Scarborough North in next October’s federal election, a plan some fear could prove a distraction but which he called “an opportunity. Canada needs a national education strategy.”

Veteran east-end Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher beat Scarborough’s Jerry Chadwick for the role of vice-chair and vowed to get rid of the “rancour,” but not the arguments.

“Nice will not cut it,” said Cary-Meagher, who has been a champion of Quan. “Civil, yes. Respectful, yes, but . . . we are there to discuss issues, not personalities,” said the 79-year-old left-winger in a letter to fellow trustees in which she did not apologize for heated debates.

“We are politicians with deep philosophical convictions . . . We all have agendas and that is not a failure, it is part of knowing why we are here.”

Glover, too, had campaigned on bridge-building. At 53, he has not been openly aligned with either supporters or critics of Quan. The part-time equity studies teacher at York University had proposed trustees go on a two-day retreat in January to hammer out goals for the coming years and “establish expectations for our relationships with each other and with staff.

“Our disparate personalities should be our strength, not our downfall.”

Even candidates for vice-chair stressed the need for trustees to get along; Chadwick vowed to help build a “kinder, gentler board.”

The trustees, 11 of whom are newly elected and many of whom signed campaign pledges of more transparency, voted to conduct the election for board by secret ballot, rather than in public by a show of hands. Trustees have used the secret ballot method since 2006.

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